Match #11 - Germany v. Japan

Argentina was undone by the inability to beat the Saudi high press, mainly because of Di Maria always a step behind the Saudi defense, preventing Argentina from doing better to carve out openings with Di Maria choking opportunities that could have been.
Germany was undone because they lack the class of top goal scorers upfront, taking shots that were typically quite off.
Those problems can't be pushed under the rug as mere bad luck.

 

ooof - fan them flames, bruv

 

Congratulations to Japan. Well done.

 

Vamos Costa Rica!

 

So many people were complaining about the AFC being the second highest representative in the world cup after UEFA , maybe it feels justifiable now ?

 

Beautiful 2nd Japanese goal. Smashed into the roof of the net from a tight angle. Hard to score a better looking goal!

 

Happy for Japan.
Germany has to face Spain next!

 

They were not great in the qualifiers either

We were utter s***t and deserved to be beaten but Germany beat us on 2 great perfomances by Serge Gnabry

It looked like Flick steered the ship for a little while but no. Germany had an easy group

Let's wait to see who goes further first

 

Germany deserved to blow 3 points.
Full credit to Japan for withstanding adversities.

 

Re: the underlined, not really. Germany got chances, but so did Japan. Both sides had shots on goal which flew a few feet over the crossbar.

Germany was underwhelming in this match. It did not look anywhere as dangerous overall as England and France have so far. I'll even say that your team was better (at least in the first 45 minutes yesterday) than Germany today.

Japan deserves credit. It played with a compact and well-organized defense, it did not back down from physical contact with the Germans, and it set up some good plays. This result, along with the Republic of Korea's 2-0 win over the same Germany in the group stage 4 years ago, all but buries any jokes that Europeans or South Americans may be tempted to make about Asian national teams in the World Cup.

 

It was indeed a great goal, one of the better ones in this tournament so far. It was very similar to the 2nd Dutch goal over Argentina in 1998.

 

That has never happened before because it has never happened.

2018 vs
Mexico 1-0
Sweden 2-1
S Korea 2-0

Congrats Japan. You deserved it!

 

Never said it's "mere" luck but there is always some luck involved in matches like these.

Lautaro puts his arm one centimeter behind and the brilliant saudi gameplan is done just like that.

Germany scores one of the dozen chances they created and the brilliant japanese gameplan ends in nothing.

 

The World Cup right now is like a March madness bracket gone wrong

 

I'm sorry, I disagree. 9 shots on goal and 26 total. That's quite a lot.

 

Luck is part of the game, but something that begins to look predictable isn't mainly about luck. Read my first half comments before Japan had even a (non-offside) shot. Before their first shot late in the first half.

 

You disagree with Japan displaying disciplined soccer and earning a win against Germany? What exactly do you disagree with? This match is about Germany vs. Japan and you came in here talking about how if this if that Argentina would have been up and so would have Germany.....

Germany was underwhelming. It didn't dominate Japan the way England dominated Iran or the way France dominated Australia.

The one true similarity between what happened to Germany today and to your team yesterday is that both of them scored their goals via PKs, but even there the similarity is limited: Japan's goalkeeper committed a real foul. The foul which resulted in the PK call for your team was non-existent.

 

The 1st half, tactically and in chances, looked like England v Iran. In fact, statistically, the Germans had way more shots than England. But England was sharp and showed class upfront.

 

You can blame Neuer, but that ball was shot very hard from a very close range.

Not easy to stop

 

That was a great goal. Kudos to Japan. Give the same shot to the Germans the way they were shooting, and they wouldn't have even come close to scoring. Not today.

 

nah. March Madness is one and done. This ain't. Germany (and Argentina) can still make deep runs.

 

And another similarity is that both teams got remontada'd

 

It will be 4 out of 5 in a couple days.

 

Germany had better stats in this match than France or England in theirs, literally the only difference was that they didn't put the game away from the opponent soon enough and let them back into it when it seemed impossible after how the first 70 minutes transpired. That's the point I'm trying to make: sometimes these "brilliant gameplans" are more like a sudden psychological shift or momentum. I doubt the japanese plan was getting bombarded for 70 minutes.

Argentina is a different story because we played way worse than Germany today (in attack at least) but it's still useful for the point since the brilliant saudi high line gameplan could have been done in if Lautaro didn't incline his arm as much as he did (or, according to some experts on Twitter, if the VAR drew the correct line).

 

Yeah German media is extremely annoying. Even just before kick off they asked Hansi Flick basically only political questions and nothing related to the match.